The present invention relates to an apparatus for controlling an audio frequency equalizer, and more specifically, to an apparatus for controlling a personalized audio frequency equalizer.
People are frequently exposed to various sounds during their lifetime. However, with the advent of modern techniques, particularly personal portable music devices and headsets, we are in danger of rapidly deteriorating our hearing ability. Despite regulations limiting the maximum volume output of these devices, many devices are able to emit volume exceeding 85 dB and may permanently damage hearing, and this is due to lack of awareness of volume size.
Therefore, cases of hearing impairment caused by earphones and headphones are often reported. Although personal music devices offer a user to listen to audio without harming other people since these audio playback devices are generally inserted in or tightly attached to the ears of the user, they cause subtle impairments in the user's hearing or lead to hearing loss in severe cases. Although the user himself or herself should reduce the output level to solve this problem, users enjoying music of a genre such as heavy metal, rock or disco listen to the music raising the output level in many cases and habitually set an output level of the audio in most cases, and it is difficult to listen to audio at a proper volume.
Moreover, since clarity of music is hindered in a situation where there is a considerable amount of environmental background noise, the user increases the total volume to a level similar to the noise, and if the user is not sensitive to a specific frequency, the user increases the overall volume, which may damage the hearing ability.
Particularly, if a user does not wear a headphone capable of ambient isolation, the user is easy to be exposed to environmental noises since the sounds leak into the ears. In addition, intensity of ambient noises should not be underestimated since the ambient noises reach 95 dB as a result of measurement at downtown subway stations. Although the volume alone may permanently damage the hearing ability, frequently, the user unconsciously increase the total volume at all frequencies to overcome the environmental noises, and loss of hearing is accelerated.
This problem can be solved by providing a separate equalizer so that the user may manually and digitally increase or decrease volume of individual frequencies.
However, the equalizer has a problem described below.
Since the user is not accustomed to an equalizer platform and the sound unit of decibel, it is difficult to edit a desired signature. In addition, considering the non-linearity in the increase of volume of in the decibel units, there may be an unintended problem such as excessively increasing the frequency due to manual handling of an unaccustomed equalizer. Therefore, there may be a side effect of permanently damaging hearing ability or preventing accurately representing intended sound. Furthermore, since the threshold of hearing (TOH) of a user is not considered, there is a problem of providing a distorted and degraded sound to the user.
Furthermore, a user having a hearing loss at a specific frequency may not hear the sound by the setting of an equalizer that is not edited for the specific frequency. Such as user will likely increase the volume of the audio output device, increasing the sound pressure level across all frequencies. This average increase in sound pressure level may still prevent the user from hearing the sound source of the frequency at which the hearing ability is lost. Further loss of hearing due to excessive sounds at the other frequencies may also occur.
In addition, a modern manual equalizer does not correctly transfer an audio intended by a creator to a user as is intended by a manufacturer. This is due to that the hearing curve of the user is uniquely deviated from the standard hearing data (SHD) across the entire audible spectrum of sound. That is, since the audio is not outputted as is heard, each user interprets the audio in a different way. Since the TOH of the user is not considered as described above, this problem can be solved only by the equalizer.